1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system which prints using a job ticket and, more particularly, to an information processing apparatus which prevents interruption of all printing processes even when a fault or the like occurs during processing, a control method and a program therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
A printing agent creates a printed material, e.g., magazine, newspaper, brochure, advertisement, or photograph, in accordance with an order received from a third party, i.e., a customer or client, to create the printed material. The printing agent delivers the printed material to the client, and collects a fee from the client. The mainstream in the commercial printing industry is printing using a large-scale printing apparatus, such as an offset reproduction printing press. In the printing industry, work proceeds through various steps, which may include, but are not limited to, entry, design & layout, comprehensive layout, i.e., presentation using a printer output, proofreading, i.e., layout correction and color correction, proof, i.e., proof print, block copy preparation, printing, post-processing, and shipping.
The recent advent of high-speed, high-quality electrophotographic and inkjet printing apparatuses has given rise to a print-on-demand (POD) market. The POD market handles jobs that are comparatively smaller than jobs handled by a printing apparatus in a requested delivery period, and without using any large-scale apparatus or system.
Instead of a conventional large-scale printing apparatus or system, the POD market employs digital printing using electronic data by making the best of a digital image processing apparatus, which may include, but are not limited to, a digital copying machine or a digital multifunctional peripheral. In the POD market, digital technology is adapted more than in the conventional printing industry, and management and control using computers are becoming popular.
For example, the POD generates a schedule to complete processing by a deadline. To efficiently advance processing, the POD generates a POD workflow by combining a plurality of processing steps, and prints using a job ticket. The job ticket is an electronic representation of work steps of data to be printed. A print shop or the like which undertakes POD need only print in accordance with a job ticket. The job ticket is thus an indispensable technology for automating processing. Details of the job ticket will be explained hereinafter.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-164570 discloses a method of advancing workflow processing using a job ticket. The reference discloses a method of generating a job ticket corresponding to a generated workflow, and performing necessary processes in accordance with the job ticket as issued from a workflow generation apparatus.
As an apparatus (finisher) for performing post-processing (finishing processing) for a printed material, a near-line finisher that connects via communication with a printing apparatus and a computer serving as the control apparatus of the printing apparatus is being implemented. The near-line finisher is independent of the printing apparatus, and thus has superior function extension and substitutability. The near-line finisher also contributes to processing automation because it can receive an electronic job ticket via communication, and execute processes described in the job ticket.
The technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-164570 can generate a job ticket corresponding to a generated workflow. However, the technique so disclosed does not consider, e.g., generation of an error during processing in accordance with a job ticket. To continue processing in accordance with a job ticket after generation of an error during processing according to contents described in the job ticket, the generated error must be canceled before successive processing may be performed. For this reason, the processing completion time of a print job may be delayed by the time in which the processing is interrupted. For example, in a workflow of performing finishing processing, i.e., post-printing processing, the workflow cannot advance to the post-printing processing step after printing by a digital printing apparatus before the end of the printing processing step. If an error occurs during printing, a print sheet output halfway cannot shift to finishing processing. After the error is canceled in the printing step and all print results (printed materials) to be finished are prepared, finishing processing starts. Thus, the time to completion is delayed by the time required for error recovery.
In the POD market, for example, schedule information is generated from delivery information, and processing proceeds in such a manner to meet the delivery date. Thus, a delay in the completion time may lead to a serious loss.